The Androsol study indicated that T levels remain elevated for a few days after a single application. While this is impressive, how would this information affect the AM use protocol? I presume that the subjects showered regularly so apparently this did not wash off the Androsol.
Just keeping this alive.
Yeah, I’d like to keep this alive too. In one place it says that surfing won’t remove Androsol from the skin because removal requires a solvent like the isopropyl alcohol used to apply it, yet elesewhere we are told we can use Androsol once in the morning and shower it off in the pm to avoid T-suppression. So, which is it?
Newbie: Surfing= no soap and wash cloth. Androsol won’t come off in water alone in other words; you need soap and a wash cloth.
So if I shower in the morning when should i use androsol, before or after.
ndweasel- You’re joking right?
But Chris, this may sound kind of weird, but I assume that the subjects in the study were not instructed to shower any differently than they usually do which would mean using soap and a wash cloth. Is there any information on whether or not they were instructed to act differently? I know that a detail like that might sound strange but the study seems thorough and something like that would be important since it would represent the way most people behave in the real world under practical circumstances.
Thanks for your response, Chris! I was about to e-mail a letter asking about this.
I’m confused by your saying there’s a study
where Androsol kept T levels elevated for
several days after one application. The data
I have, and the data I have seen on the website, is the opposite, showing T returned
to baseline by 24 hours.
The reason it returns to baseline by 24 hours
without a shower being required is that the
applied layer has been exhausted or otherwise
slowly lost with time. It is correct that
moderate amounts of water, no washcloth and
no soap, no toweling afterwards, don’t remove
Androsol, but as to whether hours in the surf
might not remove it, it’s a guess as to whether that is so or not. I would think that if there is nothing rubbing on the skin, and little
forceful impact of water on the skin, that most
would remain since 4-AD is practically insoluble in water.
Bill I was refering to the Bloodhound Scientist article in the last issue (#163) where it mentioned that free T levels remained elevated for 24-72 hours after a single application. But basically what I was asking was even if it were for only 24 hours that would still be long enough to have elevated androgen levels during the late night/early morning hours when LH production is highest but yet many people including myself report that they have little supression after prolonged use. And since the test subjects were probably not instructed to not shower or wash yet still had prolonged elevated T levels for so long (24 hours) I was wondering if 4-AD somehow was less suppressive than other androgens?
I guess I should chime in here. This is the text of the abstract that was presented at the ACSM conference.
SERUM ANDROGEN LEVELS ARE ELEVATED AFTER TOPICAL APPLICATION OF 4-ANDROSTENEDIOL S.J.McGregor, S.K.Tsivitse, T.J.McLoughlin, F.X.Pizza. Exercise Physiology Laboratory, The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH. e-mail: stephen.mcgregor@emich.edu
The objective of this study was to determine if a single administration of a commercially available topical 4-androstenediol (ANDRO) product would result in elevated androgen levels. In a randomly assigned, double blind fashion, nine healthy young, sedentary males (25.2±4.8 y,179.2±5.8 cm, 88.3±11.5 kg, 17.6±4.3 BF%) were administered either the product (EXP) or placebo (PLA) at the same time of day (0700-0900 h) on two different occasions. Treatment consisted of topical, aerosol application of 10 ml (500 mg) ANDRO in isopropyl alcohol (EXP) or alcohol only (PLA), and were separated by a one-week washout. Resting blood samples were taken immediately prior to (T0) and 1, 2, 3, 10, 24, 48 and 72 h (T1, T2, T3, T10, T24, T48, and T72 respectively) post-application. Subjects were instructed to refrain from strenuous activity and maintained diet records during the study period. Free (FT) and total testosterone (TT) were determined by radioimmunoassay. Using a two-way repeated measures ANOVA, a significant (p<.05) treatment effect was observed where serum FT levels were higher in EXP relative to PLA over the 72 h sampling period. An interaction between time and treatment resulted in elevations for TT in EXP (28.15±4.30 and 26.41±3.67 nmol/l) vs. PLA (15.85±2.63 and 19.9±3.76 nmol/l) at T10 and T24, respectively (p<.05). In conclusion, a single topical administration of 4-androstenediol does result in elevated serum androgen levels, and these levels may remain elevated for up to 72 h. These data may have implications for athletes who self-administer over-the-counter andro products prior to tested competitions.
The statement that is probably causing confusion is, "Using a two-way repeated measures ANOVA, a significant (p<.05) treatment effect was observed where serum FT levels were higher in EXP relative to PLA over the 72 h sampling period."
What this means is that, for FT, we ran an analysis of variance of the Androsol treatment versus the placebo. There are three significant differences you can find with this analysis; an effect for time, an effect for treatment and an interaction between time and treatment. The analysis we ran did not show an interaction between time and treatment, just a treatment effect. What this means is that FT levels were higher as a result of Androsol treatment, but the analysis could not pick out the exact timepoints that were different. So, the literal interpretation of the analysis is that FT levels were higher over the 72 hour time period. By looking at the graphs though, it appears as though FT levels return close to baseline at 24 hours. If they do not return it was not a result of Androsol treatment as ADiol returned to baseline by 24 hours. To be scientifically correct though, we can only interpret the statistics literally, it is left up to the reader to accept the literal interpretation or take a more pragmatic view.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Steve. But! did anyone understand all that?
Thank you for the response Steve.
I have some questions for Steve McGregor. How is the Two way repeated measures ANOVA different from a balanced ANOVA or from an ANCOVA. I thought all studies such as the one you described required and ANCOVA where the natural influence carried into the experiement from each candidate needed to be filtered out (covariate)